Hathras gangrape: UP govt ends blockade of victim's village as SIT completes probe; Gandhis to meet Dalit girl's family

The Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday allowed the media and Opposition leaders to travel to the native village of a 19-year-old Dalit girl who died on Tuesday, a fortnight after being allegedly gangraped by four upper caste men in the Hathras district.

The government said that the decision to lift the restrictions on entry into the village was taken after the special investigation team (SIT) completed its probe into the assault.

On 14 September, the victim was allegedly gangraped by four upper caste men. She succumbed to her injuries in Delhi's Safdarjung hospital on Tuesday.

On Saturday, DGP HC Awasthy met the victim's family as per Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's instructions, The Indian Express reported. Adityanath has also reportedly asked Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi to visit the village as well.

The officials will then submit a report on the visit to Adityanath.

Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi will also make another attempt to meet the victim's family on Saturday. On Thursday, their efforts to travel to the village were blocked by the Uttar Pradesh Police, which had resulted in a chaotic scuffle.

In anticipation of the Gandhis' visit on Saturday, there was a heavy deployment of police personnel on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with barricades on the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway. The border wasn't sealed but checks were made stringent at the Delhi-Noida border, PTI reported.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeted that over 50 party MPs are expected to travel to the family's residence. While he appealed for the state government to "behave sensibly", the party alleged that its Uttar Pradesh unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu and other workers were put under house arrest.

Meanwhile, Union women and child development minister and BJP leader Smriti Irani has termed the Gandhis' plan to visit the victim's village as a political gimmick. “Rahul Gandhi’s march towards Hathras is for politics, not for justice,” Irani said, according to a report in Hindustan Times.

The Hathras gangrape has drawn nationwide outrage after the victim died due to grievous injuries on Tuesday and was cremated in the dead of night allegedly without the consent of her family on Wednesday.

In the face of the condemnation, the Hathras administration had on Thursday clamped prohibitory orders barring the assembly of more than four people in the district. This effectively restricted politicians and the media from accessing entry to the village. About 300 police personnel stood on guard to prevent anybody from entering, PTI reported.

On Friday, another scuffle broke out when TMC MP Derek O'Brien attempted to enter the village.

However, restrictions on the media's entry were lifted by authorities on Saturday. Only the entry of media has been allowed into the village of the victim as the probe of the SIT has been completed, Joint Magistrate Prem Prakash Meena said.

Adityanath had set up three-member Special Investigation Team on Wednesday and instructed that it submit its report by 14 October.

The death of the young woman, whose brutal assault recalled for many, the horrors of the gangrape of Jyoti Singh on 16 December, 2012 in Delhi, continued to snowball into a major political issue.

In a tweet in Hindi using the hashtag 'Hathrashorror', Rahul said the behaviour of the Uttar Pradesh government and police with the woman and her family "is unacceptable".

The former Congress president asserted that "no power in the world" can stop him from meeting this grieving family in Hathras and sharing their pain.

Hitting out at the Adityanath dispensation, Priyanka described the state government as "morally corrupt" and said, "The victim did not get treatment, her complaint was not registered on time, her body was forcibly cremated, the family is in captivity, they are being suppressed — now they are being threatened that they will have to undergo a narco test."

The party also alleged that the woman and her family had been denied justice and "severely traumatised" by the BJP government.

On Friday, the state governemnt suspended five police personnel, including Hathras SP Vikrant Vir. Amid allegations of intimidation by the district administartion, the state government also announced that all, including the cops and the victim's family, will have to undergo a polygraph and narco test to establish the veracity of their claims.

Meanwhile, other Opposition leaders also criticised the government and state police's handling of the case.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was quoted by The Indian Express as saying that she will participate in a protest rally in Kolkata on Saturday against the gangrape and murder case.

"The march is scheduled to start from Birla Planetarium and conclude at the Mahatma Gandhi statue at Mayo Road in central Kolkata," the report said.

Additionally, BSP president Mayawati demanded a CBI or a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the incident and said people were not satisfied with the initial investigations in the matter.

"There is tremendous resentment in the entire country over the Hathras heinous gangrape case. The public does not seem satisfied with the initial probe report. Therefore, this matter should be investigated by the CBI or under the supervision of the honourable Supreme Court. This is the demand of the BSP," Mayawati tweeted in Hindi.

The BSP leader also appealed to the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, to intervene in the case. "Also, the honourable president of the country, who also comes from Uttar Pradesh and is a Dalit, it is a strong appeal to him to intervene in this case, keeping in mind the inhuman attitude of the government, to bring justice to the victim's family," she said.

With inputs from agencies

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